Fred Bauder wrote:
This is a difficult problem. If they deserve an article they have probably done something under their name (without title), but we have a faction that honestly believes that all members of the titled British nobility deserve an article based on their title. Long ago someone said, "Well, they appear in Who's Who"
Just to play devil's advocate for a minute, the main reason people seem to be arguing for the titular naming scheme is that some people were known primarily by their titles ("The 1st Duke of ...") rather than by their names, some were known by either, and the whole mess is best sorted out by just using "Firstname Lastname, Their Title" consistently.
While I can see the reason people might want a standardized naming scheme like that, I think it detracts from readability and makes some articles just ridiculous. The article on [[Bertrand Russell], for example, should very clearly appear there, *not* at [[Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl of Russell]], a name by which he was rarely if ever known, and a name he did not use when signing his writings. But this is exactly what the current proposal would mandate. Though I personally plan to keep [[Bertrand Russell]] at that location, regardless of the outcome of the current vote, as I don't recognize the authority of Wikiproject:peerage over such general-purpose articles as [[Bertrand Russell]].
-Mark